Women’s Voices: Their Critique of the Anthropology of Japan
Annual Review of Anthropology
Vol. 19: 17-37 (Volume publication date October 1990)
Mariko Asano Tamanoi
In lieu of an abstract, the publisher reproduces the first page of the article. (Link)
During law school, we law students were regularly encouraged to “think like lawyers,” and I feel I know what that is and what it means. At this point in my anthropology readings I’m starting to wonder what it would mean to “think like an anthropologist.” How would an anthropologist view a scene differently than, say, a sociologist or psychologist; there’s so much overlap with and borrowing from those two fields. I’m not completely clueless, but I have no where near the grasp that I do with regard to lawyering. I think this question comes to me more strongly given that the regional studies concern themselves more than others with discussions of “what” and “how” anthropologists study.
In her discussion of “Women and Family” Tamanoi contrasts sociological studies with anthropological ones. I wondered whether her conclusions were part of a broader commentary on how anthropology differs from sociology or whether they were more specific to the groups of studies discussed. Are there clues to how to think like an anthropologists? She writes that while both emphasized the power of Japanese women (particularly in the domestic sphere), anthropologists paid closer attention to the way women spoke and how they spoke about being female: ”And since ethnographers pay specific attention to the very language these women speak, the informants’ voices emerge more clearly: They are not spoken for, they speak.” She notes that the sociological studies consisted primarily of studies by American female sociologists who conducted fieldwork among urban middle-class housewives; the anthropologists had a broader range of informants.
Is Tamanoi saying that anthropologists are less ethnocentric than sociologists? Is she saying that anthropologists are more likely than sociologists to use methods that mitigate ethnocentricism?
Directions in the Anthropology of Contemporary Japan
Annual Review of Anthropology
Vol. 20: 395-431 (Volume publication date October 1991)
William W. Kelly
In lieu of an abstract, the publisher reproduces the first page of the article. (Link)
Kelly writes separately of Shinto and ancestor worship. My memory from elementary school is that I was taught that the two were almost synonymous. W. G. Aston writes that this error of belief came about due to statements by Captain Francis Brinkley, and quotes Brinkley as saying, “Ancestor worship is the basis of Shinto.” I didn’t have access to Aston’s whole article…sigh. When I wrote on Monday that Kelly noted some things about Shinto that helped me better understand the connection I felt when first learning of Shinto, what I really should have said was that Kelly noted some things about ancestor worship. Here’s what he wrote:
[Ancestor worship] expresses a concept of a life continuum in which the household comprises a circulation through, and mutually dependent relationships among, the yet-unborn, the recently born, the “fully” living, the recently deceased, and the long departed (252).
Kelly goes on to say that the term “ancestor worship” is doubly misleading as the practice is not limited to direct ancestors and worship does not give proper attention to the notion that “the living and deceased are linked in reciprocal flows of assistance and dependence.” The “concept of a life continuum” as described above was very much alive in the rural Mississippi town of my childhood. Recently, I’ve been thinking more specifically on the way my family life encouraged a connection with the “yet-unborn.”
Speaking with friends and acquaintances with very young children, I’ve made casual notice of the increasing level of parent-to-child attachment from birth. It appears takes many people at least a couple years to reach the level of attachment that seemed present at birth in my extended family. I had a nickname before I was born; this was common practice. At the earliest stages of womb implantation, the anthropomorphizing of the fetus began. The fetus was talked to and talked on behalf of in full baby-speak. There were full-on, two-way conversations. For example, if my pregnant aunt were eating, she might say in baby-speak, “Ooh, Mama, I like that food!” Someone might respond (to the fetus), “Do you really? I’m gonna get more of that for your Mama.” Or, if she were sewing something or shopping for something in anticipation of the birth, she might ask the opinion of the fetus. The interactions were plentiful and, perhaps, more robust than my examples. And while fetus-speak might originate with the mother speaking “the mind” of the fetus, others would start to do so more and more as time went on.
The recently deceased were talked about as being present in guiding what a person might say or guiding a person to a beneficial opportunity. A long-deceased person might be present in the fact that a tree grew in a odd way, maybe leaning to one side in similar fashion to the deceased person. Both the recently deceased and long deceased might help with acquainting the fetus with family life and the like.
I haven’t read enough about ancestor worship in Japan to have a clear idea of whether the things I remember about the “life continuum” from my hometown are similar to how that concept is expressed in Japan. I look forward to fleshing this out more.
